Road to Nowhere
by Molly Myles
Summary: Sequel to Wandering Stars. A string of bizarre deaths brings the Winchesters and the recently fallen Castiel to Oregon, where things quickly turn out to be more complicated than they anticipated. How are these deaths connected, and why do the victims all seem to be getting their just desserts? [case fic with a side of Destiel]
1. Chapter 1

Andy Ricciotti lounged in the private jacuzzi of his personal suite at the Nines, one of the ritziest hotels in town, basking in the glow of having successfully gotten his ass off the proverbial hook. The room was massive, palatial and modern, with embedded lighting casting an ethereal blue glow that permeated the dark, warring with the glow of the television for dominant ambiance.

It had taken a couple of years, a few favours and more than a handful of threats, but his spineless lawyer and resourceful cousin Vinnie had pulled his ass out of the fire. He'd been days from an irrevocable life sentence, his future hanging in the balance whilst the strings were pulled behind the scenes. Very little had filtered down to him through the wire as his favourite cousin worked his magic, leaving him biting his nails until the judge had laid down his gavel, awarding him 1.8 large for wrongful imprisonment and his unconditional freedom.

Vinnie must've found some real dirt on the guy, Andy thought to himself as he cracked open another PBR. Getting away with murder was one of the greatest feelings he'd ever felt. It wasn't like the asshole hadn't deserved it, but for the last few months, man, he was really sweatin' it. The award from the state was the icing on the cake, and Andrew fully intended to indulge in every upper, downer, in-betweener, hooker, booze and whatever else struck his fancy as soon as he could get his hands on it.

For tonight, however - his first night of freedom - he was content simply to relish the near scalding bubbles as they buffeted flesh too long deprived of anything but brief, cold showers and watching an old favourite mobster movie on the little portable set he'd set up on a chair at the end of the tub.

"Andy," an unexpected voice drawled out of the little colour set, "you fat sack of shit!"

Andy startled, pulling himself up and staring at the television, but he must have been hearing things because the scene on the screen didn't seem out of the ordinary, just his favourite scene, exactly as he remembered it. It was just a trick of the mind, a misheard line.

And then Eddie del Toro decked his own brother right in the jaw, knocking him flat and turning to the screen - staring right at Andy through the fourth wall.

"You think you could get away with it, Andy?"

Andy stared at the screen, dumbstruck with horror and wondering if someone'd slipped him a mickey or something... but he'd been alone for hours.

"Yeah, I'm talkin' to you," Eddie continued, pointing at him. "You really think you can just waste a guy and walk? You're not such a smart guy, are ya, Andy?"

In a panic, Andy kicked out, slapping at the power button on the old console with his foot, too freaked out to attempt to get near it. The television wobbled on its chair, threatening to tumble into the bubbling water as it teetered dangerously close to the edge. With a very un-manly shriek, he lunged forward, losing his footing on the slick bottom of the tub and falling forward, bashing his nose in on the edge of the tub, but somehow managing to slap a hand to the screen and steady the little T.V. on the chair before it tipped all the way forward and turned his bath into a barbecue.

Though his nose was bloody, possibly broken, he let out a shaky exhale of relief, laughing nervously to himself. He was hearing things, seeing things. He'd had one too many Tall Boys. That was all it was. Nerves and booze.

Regardless, he climbed hastily out of the tub, slipping on the tiled floor as he scrambled for a towel to wrap around himself, holding the ends that didn't quite meet together with one hand at his waist. He'd call Vinnie, maybe see if he could bring up some grass or something. Yeah, that was a good plan. Vinnie'd call him an idiot and confirm he was just losing it after so long pent-up at the state 'pen.

Something tugged at the towel, yanking it free from his hips and then whipping it at his ass, cracking right across his bare cheeks. Andy let out a shrill of terror, bolting for the door. It had to be a ghost. The ghost of the guy he'd killed, back to fuck with him for taking a walk. Andy'd never been superstitious, but he was sure as hell invisible men didn't exist, so a ghost was the only semi-rational explanation.

"I'm sorry!" he squeaked as he stumbled through the room, blindly grabbing one of the two duffel bags off the bed and falling over himself to get to the front door of the suite and escape this bizarre torment. Andy could deal with a lot of heavy crap, but ghosts were not in his pay grade.

He ran out into the hall, disregarding the fact that he was buck naked apart from a few lingering suds and a sheen of sweat, duffel bag flailing as he whimpered and gibbered pathetically to himself. He slapped his hand frantically on the 'down' button once he reached the elevator lobby, shifting his eyes back over his shoulder every couple of seconds, fearful of the vengeful spirit that had infiltrated his television.

"Come on, come on!" he shouted at the elevator doors, digging around in the bag as he shifted from foot to foot, finally locating a pair of sweat pants and frantically pulling them on.

When the lift still hadn't arrived after he had tied his sweats at his waist, he growled his impatience and hit the stairwell door instead, wet feet slapping against the painted gray concrete steps as he ran, taking the stairs three to four at a time. Rounding the third landing, he heard Eddie del Toro's distinct voice whisper harshly in his ear; "You're gonna burn, you slimy little shit!"

With a yelp, Andy lost his footing, the slick painted surface of the emergency stairwell betraying his grip as his wet foot slipped on the surface, inertia taking over from there.

For a terrifying fraction of a second that seemed suspended in time, he felt as though he was floating above the twenty-foot decline of the stairs, long enough to take into account the sharp ledge of each step below as his face inched ever toward his impending doom.

The spell broke as he felt the fire of impact on the concrete through his left shoulder and across his face, flipping bodily end over end as he rolled over his neck and felt as much as heard a distinctive crack, every nerve in his body instantly burning and buzzing with shock. Bones crunched and tendons and muscles tore at each impact, creating a tapestry of agony across his flesh as he rolled down the steps. He was pretty sure that at some point he pissed himself, but by the time he came to a rest in a heap on the bottom landing, he didn't much care anymore. He was more shocked at the fact that apparently, he was not only alive but still _conscious, _albeit disoriented and in excruciating pain.

A shadow fell over him as he lay there twitching, unable to properly move. He turned his eyes up toward this new presence, only to meet the cold, dark eyes of Eddie del Toro, the legendary mafia hit-man himself, real as life and towering over him with a smug, murderous look in his eyes.

"Time's up, you festering pisshole," Eddie drawled in a loose Boston accent.

"Please," Andy gasped, weeping shamelessly and slurring incoherently, "I'll go back to jail, I'll tell 'em everything, jus' please don' kill me..."

The figure above him smirked, folding his arms over his suit-clad chest as he considered the broken miscreant. Obviously, Andy was delusional, because he could almost swear that just before the lights went out and he slipped into blissful unconsciousness that the visage of the hit-man started to shift and change as his sight began to gray at the edges.

The last thing he registered was a pair of honey gold eyes boring into him, filled with mischief and malice.

* * *

The sky overhead was a pristine blue, marred only by a smattering of puffy white cumulus clouds above the dense tree line. There was a faint breeze, smelling faintly of fresh-baked bread and hops mingled with the distinct tang of pine, strange but not entirely unpleasant.

The Willamette River stretched North to South, winding between the trees that lined the banks on either side. It was unseasonably warm for the first week of June, but never let it be said that it does nothing but rain in the Pacific Northwest - Oregon can do Summer just as well as any other.

Despite the heat in excess of ninety-five degrees, Castiel found himself comfortable and at peace, standing mid-calf in the cool, gently moving waters of the river and relishing the soft silt oozing between his toes. The contrast of warm air and the chilly water was pleasant, making the heat wave a bit more tolerable to the former angel of the Lord.

He closed his eyes, recalling a long-distant time when he had still been an angel; standing on a beach with his brothers in what would become known as Mesopotamia, his first venture to Earth as a fledgling. The atmosphere was mostly humid then, the oceans still warm, polar ice caps not quite fully formed as they were presently. Mammals were still a new idea, and a particular fish was making its first attempts with strange limbs and lungs to crawl onto the dry, sandy beach.

_"Don't step on that fish, Castiel," _his brother had said, _"big plans for that fish."_

The memory brought with it some measure of sadness, however, as he had realised that over the last few months since he had fallen, he had also lost the ability to comprehend even his own True Form. He no longer remembered what his brothers and sisters 'looked' like, and the thought depressed him to a degree. His vessel, the form that was now permanently his for better or worse, was all his mind could offer when he thought of how he had been as an angel; a slim, dark-haired, blue-eyed man in his prime containing a truly incomprehensible being of immeasurable power.

Despite his all too human perception, his memory remained as eidetic as ever. He still remembered everything from his creation to this present moment, though his mind now replaced the visages of his brethren with their human vessels - forms that his human mind could comprehend. It was confusing, and a little sad. It was as though an entire dimension was now stripped away from his senses, like the world was squashed onto a single sheet of paper. It felt so limited, and frustrating, and yet there was so much more that he felt that was so completely alien to everything he had ever known in his long existence. Emotions, sensations, taste, touch - things that were muted when he had merely been inhabiting this human form, that had been so overwhelming when his essence - his soul - had first become one with nerves and muscle and flesh and synapses.

There were many things that he missed painfully about being a multi-dimensional wavelength of celestial intent, his wings being paramount. He would never tell Dean, but he rather despised spending so much time trapped in the metal frame of the Impala, crawling along the highways of the United States at a snail's pace compared to what the Winchesters had termed as 'Angel Airways'. He missed 'Angel Radio', as well - being able to hear the Host in his mind. He still kept contact with a handful of his brothers, but he pined for the closeness that he had been accustomed to, the singularity of Heaven's collective.

To say that he harbored no regrets for his decision to fall would be a lie. He did regret it, immensely, but above his regret was acceptance. There was nothing he could do to take it back, and so he must accept that he was now human. He would never tell Dean or Sam about his regrets - it was too raw a subject to broach to either brother - Dean in particular. The closest he could come to describing how he felt about his mortal condition was akin to being given news of a terminal illness. No doubt the elder Winchester would take it as an affront, guilt to be borne if he were to realise how much Cas wished he had never stepped from that ledge, just as it was certain that Dean would feel the same guilt if he were to know what had prompted it in the first place. Castiel acknowledged it for what it had been; cowardice, pure and simple, in the face of a foe he felt he could not fight on his own.

So many times it had been that he had made such blunders simply because his pride would not allow him to reach out to those he trusted, to his friends, for help. Naomi's grip on him had seemed absolute, but there had been signs to point out that something was amiss. Even though on Earth he remembered nothing, in Heaven he had known. He had felt as though it was a just punishment befitting his crimes, right up until Naomi had forced him to kill against his free will - the one thing that he had come to cherish almost as much as his friendship with the Winchesters.

Castiel sighed, wiggling his numb toes in the soft soil of the riverbed. Despite his regrets and his loss, not everything about being human was all that terrible. There was coffee, the feeling of warm grass beneath his bare feet, chocolate, warm rain, feeling the wind in his hair, love. Dean. He smiled, thoughts of his favourite human pushing away the darkness in his heart, making the colours around him stand out a little brighter in response to his sudden shift in mood. Their friendship had changed significantly since he'd fallen back into their lives, going far beyond 'brotherly'. He cherished it, the closeness that he had found with Dean, and although it didn't fill the void in his soul that the loss of Heaven had left, it certainly distracted him from the pain.

He was so lost in his thoughts, drinking in the sights and sounds and scents and sensations around him that he didn't notice the figure approach him from behind until he felt something burst against the back of his head, icy cold water soaking his hair and shoulders, dripping down his back as the contents of the water balloon released from its rubbery prison.

Cas turned slowly, shocked, to find Dean Winchester standing on the bank a few yards away, his familiar guffawing laughter splitting through the tranquil setting.

Tears were streaming down Dean's face as he took in the sight of the angel with his jeans rolled up above his knees, wearing (yet again) a Metallica t-shirt pilfered from Dean's own wardrobe. The wounded look of confusion was priceless and so worth the ass beating he was going to receive once the ex-celestial shook off the shock of getting water bombed. It was a perfect hit, too, the splash plastering Castiel's hair forward into his face and giving him the bedraggled, traumatized look of a wet cat.

"Cas," he wheezed, fighting to regain control of himself, "you look like a drowned cat..."

The angel frowned, scowling up at his former charge. "In what way do I resemble a dead feline?"

"You know," Dean amended, establishing a measure of composure and waggling his eyebrows at the fallen angel lasciviously, "I kinda like the wet look on you."

Cas raised an eyebrow at this. Dean could see the angel sizing him up, and he knew what was inevitably going to come next. Seconds later, Castiel sprung into action, going from statue-still to full-out, kicking up waves in his wake running after the hunter.

"Oh shit," Dean snickered as he turned and sprinted back up the hill towards the rustic little motel they'd checked into the previous night. It was one of the nicer places they'd come across over the years, more of a by-the-night studio apartment than a motel room, complete with a fully functional kitchen and back door entry that led down to the river.

As fast as Dean was from years of hunting things and, on occasion, running for his life - Cas was faster. Jimmy Novak had been built like a distance runner, all lean muscle and stamina that had leant the angel an edge after losing his mojo and taking up hunting with his favourite mud-monkeys. It only took him a few dozen yards to overtake the elder Winchester, tackling him down to the soft grass of the incline and pinning him there bodily, leaning in to the hunter's ear.

"In what way should I repay your treachery?" he growled playfully in the elder Winchester's ear, sending a shiver down the other man's spine. Not that he'd ever admit to getting all girly about it, but he loved it when Cas pulled out the 'Batman Voice'. He wondered if the former angel even realised how much of a complete badass he really was, even without his angel powers.

Sam paused as he stepped out onto the little patch of concrete attached to the threshold, watching his brother and his friend wrestle in the grass halfway between the motel and the river, not for the first time feeling like he was intruding on some kind of moment. It wasn't that Dean's... 'thing' with Cas (Dean's words, not his - the elder Winchester just adamantly refused to use the word 'relationship' in reference to himself and the fallen angel) made him uncomfortable, not really. He had been one of the couple's earliest supporters, but it was still kind of weird to see his brother with a guy, and honestly he'd have been weirded out by some of the crap he'd seen since it all started even if Cas had been a chick. Dean had never really been the overt type when it came to any kind of touchy-feely crap and really, he still wasn't - but it was almost like looking back in time at the old Dean, before the Apocalypse and Purgatory and Heaven and Hell and demons and angels and all the other crap that had worn them down over the years, broken their spirits and hardened them into what they had become.

Over the last couple months, once the initial shock of Castiel's fall and the attacks from Naomi and Ramiel and Crowley kidnapping the former angel and everything else that followed, Dean seemed to loosen up gradually, more playful and optimistic than Sam had seen him in literally years. It was a nice change. It had been good for Cas, too. The angel had, for a while, kind of fallen into a depression after they'd learned the truth about his dive into humanity, but Dean had quickly turned that around, picking on Cas until he finally broke and fought back, and this is how they'd been ever since, picking on each other (and on Sam) and generally getting back to what was, for them, a pretty normal routine.

Honestly, Sam was kind of surprised that Dean didn't freak out more about the whole 'gay' thing in the beginning. He'd been a little sensitive about it at first, but once it was clear that pretty much _everyone _they knew had known even before _they _had, he just sort of resigned himself to it. He never would have guessed after a lifetime of one night stands and even almost settling down with Lisa Braeden a few years back, all it took to stop Dean Winchester in his tracks was a certain blue-eyed angel.

All in all, Sam was happy to have the big brother he remembered back, and that Dean had someone who could keep up with him and made him happy - but that didn't mean he felt like putting up with them making out whenever they thought he wasn't looking. Besides, they had work to do.

They'd come to Oregon a few days prior on a lead to a possible case; a guy in Beaverton, a large suburban town West of Portland, had died a pretty strange death after harassing a couple of girls in a bar who had turned him down after disclosing that he wasn't their type, resulting in his being torn apart by angry beavers. _Beavers_.

Naturally, the trio of hunters assumed it to be the work of witches or perhaps a rogue pagan god, but after interviewing the girls from the bar, the vic's friend and doing some recon around the scene and the homes of the parties involved, they turned up exactly jack shit. They'd been keeping their ear to the ground for the last few days, but until something new turned up, they were pretty much just sitting on their thumbs.

"Hey, guys," Sam called from the door, folding his arms over his chest and waiting until his companions untangled themselves. Once he had their attention, he continued, reading off the notes he'd taken on the motel stationary. "So get this - last night, Andy Ricciotti, who had that morning been released from Oregon State Penitentiary, was found incapacitated in the emergency fire stairwell of the Nines Hotel. Mr Ricciotti had been acquitted of a murder charge, despite a plethora of circumstantial evidence, leading investigators to believe this to be an attack by opponents of his release."

"So, what," Dean scoffed, digesting this information, "some douchebag walks on a murder rap, someone gets butthurt and goes for revenge and that's _our _problem?"

Sam held up a finger, giving his brother a pointed look. "There's more. Mr. Ricciotti _survived _falling down the stairs with a broken neck, collar-bone and various other non-life threatening injuries. When he regained consciousness this _morning_, he insisted to police and medical staff that the ghost of the man he killed had possessed his television and tried to kill him in revenge..."

"It does sound suspicious," Cas shrugged, glancing at Dean for confirmation.

"Yeah, sounds like a poltergeist," Dean agreed. "So he gets Carol-Leanned down a flight of stairs and lives to tell about it?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "Even more, he went back on his acquittal, confessed to the murder he'd spent the last two years insisting he didn't commit."

"Guess when you get your ass reamed by a vengeful spirit, kinda changes your outlook on the whole 'I promise to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth' spiel," Dean smirked. "Well, it's what - four o'clock? We got time to suit up and go poke around the witnesses?"

"Probably," Sam shrugged, looking over his second page of notes. "We've got... Carmen Santos - the housekeeper who found Mr. Ricciotti in the stairwell, Vincent 'Vinnie' Yestler, the vic's cousin, and Terry Newbauer, the vic's lawyer. The cousin and the lawyer are both under investigation of tampering with the original proceedings, in light of Mr. Ricciotti's confession."

Dean just stared at his brother for a long moment, eyebrows raised. "Woah, wait. This guy's got a _cousin Vinnie_?"

Sam and Cas both rolled their eyes at the elder Winchester's lack of attention span.

"Anyway," Sam continued, "we could try to get a jump-start on this, you two go hit the hospital and talk to Ricciotti, I go check out the witness from the hotel?"

"Sounds good, Sammy," Dean nodded. "Let's go find out what's up with the ghost and Mr. Chicken."

* * *

**(A/N: **Hola! I'm sincerely sorry for the long wait for this! Please don't burn my house down :( I'm going to try for weekly updates, but don't hold it against me if I'm late - Summer gets hectic for me, and I'm still kinda tied up getting settled in and wotnot.  
Unlike the 'season opener' as it were, this is going to be more of a case fic, done in the style of an episode. It's a different style for me, as I usually work around the core characters, but there's a lot going on in my head with this one so multi-perspective suits the theme better.  
Anyway! Here it is finally, the long-awaited sequel to Wandering Stars :) (more words for OCD)


	2. Chapter 2

Oregon Health Sciences University is a sprawling complex encompassing nearly a square mile, overlooking the downtown Portland grid. The university-slash-hospital is nestled in a thick urban forest at the top of a tangle of steep, winding roads, known colloquially as Pill Hill. Dean Winchester could appreciate the scenic nature of the Goldilocks City; it's not too big, not too small - a refreshing blend of small town values and vibrant metropolitan style.

One thing that set him on edge, however, was the way his passenger wistfully eyed the aerial tram connecting the hospital and the city's waterfront as they passed beneath the silver bauble, cruising along its line a couple hundred feet above their heads as they made their way up Marquam Drive. He saw the longing on the fallen angel's face, and instantly he knew what his companion was thinking.

"No way," he admonished, giving the angel a brief but stern look. "You are _not_ gonna get me on that thing."

Castiel turned and gave the elder Winchester his most innocent, least-convincing look. Dean knew better than to trust that look now. It was the look of a scheming angel, one that Dean was pretty sure was inspired by his own younger brother's insidious puppy-dog eyes.

"No," Dean reaffirmed, "knock it off."

"Dean, I have said nothing to indica-"

"Exactly my point. No means no, Cas. That thing's like a freakin'... a freakin' egg! I am _not _gonna be the yolk."

Castiel raised an eyebrow defiantly, turning his attention back to the passenger side window, sulking indifferently as he pretended the idea had never crossed his mind. Dean narrowed his eyes at the other man, the unspoken 'challenge accepted' hanging in the air between them.

Dean pulled the Impala into the visitor parking area, not really liking the idea of leaving his baby in an indoor structure. He hated these kinds of places, the complexes that were like cities unto themselves. If things got out of hand, or if their cover came into question, a clean getaway was invariably preferred. The maze-like quality of OHSU combined with the labyrinth of multi-level parking made such smooth exits all but impossible.

Pulling into a spot on the second floor of the structure, they took a moment to go over their identities one more time, pocketing fake ID badges and business cards. Dean took a moment to lean over and fix the knot on Cas' tie, muttering affectionately that one day the fallen angel was gonna have to learn to tie the damned thing so it didn't end up backwards.

Sending a quick text to Garth to give him a heads up advising him of their assumed identities, they climbed out of the car and made their way toward the main building.

Hospitals were never Dean's idea of a good time, but at least this time it wasn't because one of their cadre had ended up here. On the elevator ride up to the ICU, Dean attempted to stress through eye contact for Castiel to let him do most of the talking. It wasn't that Cas wasn't coming along on the interviewing victims and witnesses front, but the fallen angel still had a habit of forgetting his awkwardness filter when engaged in more delicate situations. Besides, Cas was better at observing, anyway - something Dean had conceded to and urged the former angel to focus on during questioning.

Once they stepped off the elevator, Dean located the ward's reception desk, flashing his brightest smile at the robust middle-aged nurse on attendance.

"Hi there," he greeted, glancing at the nurse's name badge, "Ramona," he added, turning up the grin a few watts as he pulled out his badge wallet, flashing his latest work of art. Cas did the same beside him (and got it right side up this time). "Agent LaBrie, Agent Petrucci. FBI. Wonder if you wouldn't mind pointing us in the direction of a patient by the name of Andrew Ricciotti?"

The nurse turned her dark eyes up to the hunters without moving her head, looking thoroughly unimpressed by the pair. With a brief glance at their masterfully crafted badges, she reached out to place a clipboard with a pen attached to it by a piece of string on the counter in front of Castiel.

"Sign in, please," she said, sounding bored and disinterested. "He's in room 4c, end of the hall to the left, last door. Can't miss it."

Cas picked up the pen and squinted at the sheet for a moment, printing his pseudonym in concise, blocky letters and signing with a flourish in the appropriate column before passing it off to Dean, pleased with himself that this time he hadn't received any reproving looks from his companion for which name he had written and signed.

"Thanks, Ramona," Dean chirped as he slid the clipboard back to her, then turned toward the hall, Castiel close trailing behind him.

At the end of the hall, two armed beat cops stood watch over the door, vigilantly arguing over a handful of some kind of playing cards - similar to the kind Dean had seen Charlie geek out over, with the pictures of monsters and witches and crap that supposedly fought each other with numbers and effects printed on each card. As the two hunters approached, they straightened up, cards tucked discretely into pockets as they moved to block access to the room.

Badges flashed again, and the two cops seemed to back down a degree.

"How can we help you, Agents?" asked the taller of the two, mid-twenties, short dark hair and the kind of bravado in his stance that comes along with inexperience and high academy rankings.

"We would like to have a word with Mr. Ricciotti regarding the alleged circumstances of his accident," Cas chimed in, ignoring the irritated sideways glance from his companion. Just because he was still what Dean referred to as a 'padawan' (whatever that meant) didn't mean he was completely incapable of playing his part.

After a brief dance around the red tape, the cops stood aside and let them into the room, sliding the glass door shut after them per Dean's request.

Andy Ricciotti was more plaster than man, almost every square inch of him covered in gauze and rigid white casting material. What wasn't covered was mostly purple and red, the man's face resembling a plum above the rigid neck brace. Upon a quick glance around the room, one of the first things Dean noticed was that the television set had been recently removed from its wall mount and taken out of the room, not that the guy laid up in the bed seemed to care much - dude was probably higher than a kite on morphine, or whatever it was they gave people these days for severe blunt force trauma.

They positioned themselves at the foot of the hospital bed, Cas scanning the room for anything that Dean might have missed in his precursory look-over. One of the things that made Castiel such a great observer, Dean had learned, was that he was like a human video-recorder - he remembered everything, every little detail down to the fine print. A lot of things weren't always as significant to him as they would have been to the average human observer, but his level of recall was invaluable nonetheless.

"Mr. Ricciotti," Dean barked, waiting patiently for the man to orient his consciousness to the waking world.

Andy opened his bloodshot eyes, fixing the pair of suits at the foot of the bed with a watery gaze. He'd been over this a dozen times now, some suits or badges coming in, going over his statement again and again, whether it be about the accident or his confession or both. He was tired and in pain and wished they'd just throw him in jail already and leave him the hell alone.

"How many times we gotta do this," he mumbled, closing his eyes again.

"You know how it is," Dean smirked, pulling out his pocket notebook, "all those P's and Q's. I'm Agent LaBrie, FBI, this is my partner, Agent Petrucci. Now I know you've been over this song and dance a few times already today, but some of our questions are a little... unorthodox, so bear with us if anything seems repetitive."

Andy rolled his eyes, staring up at the ceiling with a tired sigh, and Dean took this as his cue to proceed.

"Just for the record, can you tell me the name of the guy you murdered, and on what day the crime was committed?"

The mummified man in the hospital bed gave the hunter a peculiar look before hesitantly answering. "Joel Price, August of twenty-eleven. Guy stiffed me on a gram of blow."

Dean raised an eyebrow, taking down important details. The statement sounded rehearsed, but then the guy had probably been singing this song since he regained consciousness. Already he was putting together a picture in his mind of what had happened; small-time drug dealers, a deal gone sour and this asshole puts a few holes in the other guy. It might not even have been the first dude this douchebag had wasted, either. Slime like Ricciotti would get away with anything they could.

"And after you iced him," Dean continued, "you take anything off him? Anything you might've kept?"

"Just some cash," Andy admitted, "but I didn't exactly _keep _that, you know?"

"So nothing else? Like a money clip, or a wallet or anything?" No objects to tie a spirit to this guy, great. Dean really hoped they didn't have to do any grave digging. That was always the worst part of these salt-and-burn jobs.

"All right," Dean continued, disregarding the impatient look from the man in traction, "so what happened last night, Andy? Word around the bureau is you saw a ghost."

"I ain't nuts," Andy immediately went on the defensive, "I know what I saw. Ain't nobody invisible for real, y'know? I'm sittin' in my hotel room, mindin' my own and watchin' T.V. when the damned thing starts talkin' to me. I get freaked out, so I figure I gotta get out of there, right? But it starts sayin' my name, callin' me out and stuff. So I bolt and I'll be damned if Eddie del Toro didn't have a hit out on me, coz next thing I know I'm laid up in the stairwell with a broken neck and I see the guy standing over me."

"Wait, _Eddie del Toro_? Like, Mafioso 4 _Eddie del Toro_?" Dean asked incredulously because, yeah. That was weird. Ghosts didn't usually appear as fictional hit-men. The last time they'd come across something like that, it had been a dejected pagan forest god taking on the appearances of Ghandi, Abe Lincoln and _Paris Hilton, _preying on people's supposed idol-worship of celebrities. It wasn't one of Dean's fonder memories, not that he would ever admit to getting tossed around by Pop-Trash Barbie.

"Yeah yeah, that's the guy," Andy confirmed excitedly. "Sonofabitch came right out of the T.V. and knocked me down the stairs."

The rest of the questions were pretty straight-forward, procedural kind of stuff. They didn't get much more info out of the guy that would point toward a haunting, but it wouldn't hurt to follow up on that angle later, just to be safe. More and more this was sounding like either pagan gods or witches, and on the drive back to the motel, Dean tried to connect the dots, wondering how Andy Ricciotti might be connected to Don Fuller, the guy in Beaverton who'd been mauled to death by local wildlife.

* * *

Sam dropped into the back seat of the Impala, setting a suspiciously pink box on the leather seat beside him as he fastened his seatbelt.

Dean eyed him in the rear-view mirror as he merged into traffic, heading towards the freeway leading back to their motel.

"Hey, Sammy," he grinned, putting on his best Brad Pitt voice, "what's in the box?"

Sam smirked, leaning back in his seat. "Voodoo Doughnuts. I got done quick at the hotel. There wasn't much to look at, really. No ecto, nothing on EMF... hell, there wasn't even any consistent lore about the building, other than some varying stories about the Shanghai Tunnels running through the sub-basement, but it's all sealed from the lower levels with cement, so there was no way I could get down there to take a look. What'd you guys come up with?"

"Not much," Dean admitted. "I'm not so sure we're looking at a poltergeist, though. Kinda looks like it might be connected to our cold case in Beaverville. I got some info on our alleged ghost anyway, though, just in case. What the hell's a Voodoo Doughnut?"

"Do you think that our target may be a vooduan practitioner, Sam?" Castiel asked seriously.

Sam chuckled, shaking his head and passing the box forward. "They're just jelly doughnuts, but they're shaped like voodoo dolls with pretzel sticks stuck in 'em. Supervisor at the hotel said they were like a local delicacy or something. So if it's not a ghost, what is it? We've got a pretty long list and not a lot of leads."

Dean popped the lid on the box, fishing out a pastry that looked like a typical doughnut, topped with chocolate chips, marshmallows, cookie crumbles and a couple different kinds of syrup, eyeing it appraisingly and taking a bite. "Think it might be a god, or some kinda vigilante practitioner," he mumbled mostly in vowels around a mouthful of sugary decadence. "Oh my god, it's like I just came in my mouth... this is fuckin' delicious."

"Pagan god, maybe like Paris Hilton?" Sam asked, smirking as his brother winced at the memory.

"Maybe," the elder Winchester admitted, licking the syrupy goodness off his fingers. "When we get back, you start digging into pagan lore and see if anything fits, and Cas and I'll look into local records and see if we can find any info on Joel Price - burial records, criminal history, yada yada..."

"You're gonna do research?" Sam raised a disbelieving eyebrow at his brother.

"I research, sometimes!" Dean protested petulantly. "Besides, it's for Cas. Dude needs the practice."

Castiel gave the man an indignant look. "I have become more than accustomed to searching the 'web', Dean."

"Fine," Dean huffed. "You wanna do it on your own, go for it."

"Don't fall for it, Cas," Sam warned, "that was his plan from the beginning."

"When have I ever done crap like that?" Dean asked, affronted.

"You frequently use subterfuge with your brother to avoid doing things," Cas observed helpfully.

Dean shot him a perturbed glare as he eased the Impala onto the freeway exit. "Shut up and eat a doughnut, Cas."

* * *

"Hey, Amanda, you staying late again tonight?"

Doctor Amanda Lee blinked up from the microscope over which she was currently hunched, brushing a few errant strands of honey gold hair out of her eyes as she regarded her lab assistant.

"Yeah, Jerry - don't wait up for me," she confirmed with a smile, scratching out a few notes on the legal pad beside her. "I'll be out of here soon enough, I just want to finish cataloging this sample."

Since joining the CDC in 2008, late nights had become commonplace in Dr. Lee's life. Her team had come to expect it, but the routine was always the same either way. There were too many mysteries in the pathogenic world, too many terrifying unknowns. After a brush with death in her home town of Rivergrove, a virus that wiped out the entire population of the town excepting only herself, two neighbors and two fake U.S. Marshalls in 2006, she had dedicated herself to making sure that nothing like it happened again, if she could help it.

Rubbing her eyes, she turned back to the sample, adding a dropper-full of solution to check for reaction. It was her current nemesis, so to speak. A rare type of fungus, infections of C. Gatti had been cropping up across the region in recent years, creating a potential widespread health hazard. She was close to a breakthrough with this particular strain, if she just pushed a little harder...

Something acrid wafted through the sterile, climate controlled room, as though someone had struck a match, pungent enough to be distracting. Amanda stood up from the table she'd been working on, frowning to herself as she wandered around the room, checking the expensive lab equipment to make sure nothing had decided to catch fire or something. It didn't smell electrical, though... it didn't have that distinct undertone of ozone. It was more like... sulfur.

Disconcerted but finding nothing wrong, she returned to her work, glancing into the microscope to pick up where she left off. What she saw upon returning, however, froze her in place, her breath catching in her chest as she observed the sample.

The specimen she had been working with had changed - or, rather, had been replaced by something completely different. It took her a moment, but she knew that she recognized it; it was the same substance she had found in the blood of her neighbor, Beverley Tanner, all those years ago in Rivergrove. The traces of sulfuric residue were the same. The only thing that differed was the plasma solution she'd introduced to the original sample.

"That's not possible," she mused to herself, horrified and wondering if she was finally losing it after all these years pulling late nights and weekends at the lab.

She rubbed her eyes and checked again, but it remained the same; this was definitely the same virus.

Her head jerked up at the sound of the door clicking open, sighing in relief when she saw who it was that had entered the room.

"Jerry," she breathed, smiling to relieve the tension. "I thought you went home?"

Jerry remained motionless just inside the door, staring her down with intense, bloodshot eyes, skin sallow and waxen. Her heart fell as she recognized the look in her lab assistant and friend; he was infected. He was infected with the same virus that had wiped out her home town almost seven years ago.

Her heart skipped up to a marathon rhythm as she all but fell out of her seat, stumbling back toward her desk where her purse sat in the bottom drawer, the Chief's Special .22 pistol she'd bought for herself shortly after her ordeal in Rivergrove nestled in the main pocket - if she could just get to it.

She made it about half way before Jerry lunged at her, a scalpel clutched in his hand as he bore down on her.

Amanda let out a shriek of terror as she bolted the last few feet to the desk, ripping open the drawer and clutching at her purse - but by the time her fingers closed around the stock of the pistol, it was much too late.

* * *

(**A/N: **Dean and Cas's FBI names were taken from James LaBrie and John Petrucci of Dream Theatre, one of the best prog-rock/prog-metal bands in the world ;) Also, because I am a complete assbutt and forgot to mention this in my first author's note, the title of this fic is from the song of the same name by the Talking Heads (another awesome band). Give it a listen, it's a fun song. Also, the nurse in part one was inspired by a character from Legit and lovingly borrowed here. If you haven't seen Legit yet, you're doing it wrong, because DJ Qualls and Jim Jefferies are brilliant together.

And yes, Voodoo Doughnuts is a real place. No, I'm not getting paid to advertise for them, they're just that amazing, and Sam is an amazing little brother to have bought some for Dean. Yes, it was important to the plot. Don't judge me. :|

That aside, thank you guys so much for the reviews on chapter one :D awesome to see familiar faces returning - I love you guys! Especially Niccita and Heaven's Eagle. You guys keep me on my toes ;)


	3. Chapter 3

One of Dean's guilty pleasures recently was this strange fixation with eavesdropping on Castiel's calls from his brother. It wasn't as though he could understand a damned word Cas was saying, nor could he hear the other half of it, but there was something almost hypnotic about Enochian, and Dean found it hard _not _to listen in.

The two of them had been sitting side by side on the worn green sofa in the dingy, gold and green paisley wallpapered motel room when the fallen angel's cell began trilling LMFAO (Dean's idea of a joke), Dean on Sam's laptop (actually doing research for once) and Cas occasionally taking notes.

"_Ho__, Inias,"_ Cas greeted into the phone as he rose from the sofa, dropping the note pad he'd been using onto the coffee table. "_Goho p'piripson luciftian._"

Inias's calls had become less frequent over the last couple of weeks, his duties in Heaven demanding more and more time of their fallen angel's self-ascribed guardian. It was almost as though the angel was taking up Cas' mantle as the Winchesters' personal sky faerie, though they were all silently aware that if the fallen angel hadn't been with them, he wouldn't have bothered. Even Dean wasn't oblivious to the way Inias regarded Cas, the glimmer of awe in his eyes and the note of reverence in his tone whenever the angel dropped in. It was akin to hero-worship, as though Castiel was placed on a pedestal despite turning his back on Heaven and his brothers. It irritated the fallen angel somewhat, but he bore it in good humour for the sake of retaining a connection to his home and family.

Cas' expression took a sour turn as the conversation went on, forehead crinkling, mouth a line of worry. _Not good news, then,_ Dean thought as the former angel took his conversation to the other side of their time-encapsulated luxury suite. He glanced back up as Cas gave a bitter laugh, pacing back and forth just on the other side of the earth-tone beaded partition wall separating the living area from the two queen beds in the sleeping area, a string of alien syllables falling muted from his lips as Dean strained to hear whilst pretending to be engrossed in the information displayed on the laptop's screen.

"_Ma'of'fas... vgear saisch._" The fallen angel sighed and hung up the phone, pacing back toward the sofa and dropping it on the coffee table, scrubbing his hands over his face in a human gesture of frustration he'd recently picked up.

"How is that even a _language_?" Dean poked, trying to lighten the moment. "It's like, ninety-nine percent vowels."

Castiel's tired expression turned into a half-hearted scowl at the hunter as he picked up the note pad again. He was more than accustomed to Dean's wheedling, but some days he bore it better than others. The news that Inias had apprised him of had been disheartening to say the least; in the absence of the archangels, his home realm had devolved into chaos, and it wasn't getting better in his own absence. Since Naomi and her minions had been chased out of the pearly gates, several factions had formed amongst those that remained. Apparently they had not yet come to blows, but Heaven was very close to another civil war as the power vacuum grew more and more unstable.

"Things are not going well," the former angel murmured as he sat back down beside Dean, picking up where he had left off. "Heaven has been steadily falling apart since Michael... disappeared."

"Lemme guess," Dean wondered aloud, "everybody wants a piece of prime real estate in Cloud City?"

The fallen angel sighed, shoulders slumping a bit. "There will be fighting soon. Angels and free will... are not good bedfellows."

A smart-ass remark made its way to Dean's lips in response to that, but was mercifully aborted as Sam returned with an arm-load of take-out. In hind-sight, it was just as well; it probably would have landed him on the couch for a night or two anyway. Cas was a model of advanced placement in terms of an angel displaying free will, though even still they all silently agreed that most of his big-boy decisions were... well, let's just say he could have thought out a few of his brilliant ideas a little more thoroughly. Most of the other angels had fairly limited experience with doing anything but following orders. Only Balthazar and Gabriel had ever had anything on Cas in terms of bucking the system, but their motives and technique were still up for debate. Not to mention they were both dead.

Sam dropped the bags on the dinette table, sorting out boxes of chinese food and producing a six-pack. "Hey," he greeted as he worked, "anything yet?"

"Nada," Dean replied, setting the laptop on the arm of the couch and stretching his arms over his head as he stood. "Price was cremated per the state's procedure on unclaimed deceased. No bones to burn, and Ricciotti claims he didn't keep anything after he ventilated him. Thinkin' our vengeful spirit angle is a bust."

"So, I've been thinking," Sam offered, popping open a bottle of beer and ignoring his brother's muttered _'don't hurt yourself'_, "actually, it's kinda been on my mind since we left Texas. What if we're dealing with a Trickster? I mean, it kinda fits the M.O., doesn't it? Think about it, both vics sounded like complete douchebags, kinda had it coming..."

"I see where you're heading with this, Sam," Dean said as he grabbed a beer for himself, settling at the table with Cas to his left as Sam relayed his theory, "but uh, Lucifer kinda iced him back when everything was all Apocalypse Now..."

The younger Winchester rolled his eyes, taking his seat finally. "There are dozens- _hundreds _of trickster stories all over the world, Dean," he insisted, snagging a couple of rangoons before his brother and the former angel could devour them all. "Native Americans have Coyote and Raven, in South America there are stories about Encantado, and faeries in Europe, just to name a few. I'm ruling out Loki, of course."

"God," Dean moaned in discontent as he portioned out a helping of chow mein onto his paper plate, "I hope it's not faeries. I freakin' hate faeries."

"Yeah, same here," Sam agreed, "it doesn't rule out the possibility though"

The three pondered this in silence for a few minutes as they ate. The more Sam thought about it, the more convinced he was that their quarry was some variation of Trickster. Equating to Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation was often the correct one, and if this was the work of a witch, they were covering their tracks damned well.

As exotic as the idea of a Trickster was, faeries were even more far-fetched, being that they generally didn't even occupy the same plane of existence. In all the years they'd been hunting, they'd only encountered two instances of actual faerie dickery. Granted, both cases had happened within the last couple of years, and involved the ever-lucky Winchester brothers (what joy), but it was still rare.

Sam's argument started making more sense the more Dean thought about it. Their friendly neighborhood pain-in-the-ass Trickster come pain-in-the-ass-crybaby archangel couldn't have been responsible for _every _instance of Trickster lore out there, so maybe they had an angle there. Besides, it was more appealing than dealing with another tetchy, emo, pagan god.

* * *

The day following their fruitless investigation at the hospital and the hotel and a morning of backtracking, digging into other recent strange deaths in the area (enlisting a certain flame-haired Queen of Geek to help with the plethora of incidents catalogued in the Northwest in the last twelve months), the boys decided to head back to the scene of the attack that had tipped them off to the case in the first place.

McGaffy's Pub was the typical rat-trap type of dive bar, plain façade in a strip-mall that consisted of the aforementioned watering hole, an indian restaurant and a smoke shop. Inside was the kind of place you'd expect lonely old men to hang out in rather than a hand full of forelorn looking business types and college students. It wasn't very busy, even for the pre-six o'clock crowd, but there appeared to be what looked like a few regulars stationed at the bar and a couple of frat boys at one of the pub's two golf simulators.

Cory Bynon was the bartender on the afternoon shift. He was the type of guy you'd expect to see in a trendier, younger type of place; mid-thirties, black hair gelled into a messy, forward facing pile on top of his narrow head, tattooed and pierced from the ears down. McGaffy's was supposed to be a temporary gig, his first after getting his OLCC license in lieu of going to college, but for whatever reason he'd stuck around, somehow making it to seven years in this piss hole. Apart from the occasional mini-brawl, nothing much ever happened, until that guy'd been ripped apart in the parking lot last week. Man, he wished he'd been there for that.

His face took a dive as the three feds that'd been poking around earlier in the week walked in the door. They were surprisingly dressed Casual Friday today, though, so maybe it wasn't fed business, but still - he didn't really want to have to call the boss in today.

Putting on a grin that would put a Fuddrucker's waiter to shame, he braced his hand on the bartop and greeted who he assumed was the Alpha Male of the trio. "Agent LaBrie, right? What can I do for you guys?"

Dean grinned at the guy. "Three Fat Tires. Tap, if you got it."

"Off duty, I take it?" Cory asked, pulling three chilled pint glasses from under the bar and filling them.

"Eh, bureau crap. You're never really off-duty," the hunter replied with a 'what can you do' shrug, tossing fifteen bucks on the bar as Cory slid them their drinks.

Sam gave his beer a sour look. It wasn't that he didn't like amber ales, he just generally preferred local microbrews. This place, however, didn't exactly cater to such things, so it was a better option than the usual cheap PBR. Not that he was a beer snob or anything, just sometimes it was nice to break routine.

Cas didn't have any such reservations, however, having grown fond of most alcoholic beverages (except for Jager - apparently licorice was more offensive than tomatoes, much to Dean's dismay). Dean supposed that he should probably be a little worried, seeing as Cas had made it obvious he had something of an addictive personality, but the fallen angel was more than old enough to make his own decisions, and usually never drank more than a beer or two with them. If it ever got out of hand, he'd step in - but in the meantime he'd just let Cas be a grown-up.

Over the next hour or so, they engaged in light banter when the bartender wasn't tied up with underwhelming patronage. The college kids left after a couple of rounds on the virtual green and the counter swapped out a couple of faces, but the clientel remained largely unchanged.

Sam did most of the talking after the opening pleasantries, Dean pitching in when things started taking a dull turn here or there, keeping their witness on track. Cas' job was, as usual, to observe and look for anything that seemed out of place or just weird. The goal, apart from having a couple of watered down beers, was to see if they could pick up on anything they'd missed the first go-around, only this time narrowing their search for clues to what they knew about their suspected ooglie.

Nothing really stood out, not that he had a firm grasp on what was normal versus abnormal in a public house. What caught his eye more was the one thing that _didn't_ stand out. The previous times they had come into the establishment to look for clues and question the staff and witnesses, Castiel had seen the same man sitting at the same table on the other side of the pool tables, across the bar-room floor near the entrance. He was unremarkable; average height, sleight of build, dark hair and dark eyes, dressed in a neutral, dark green button down open over a brown shirt. He didn't really stand out, could almost be invisible if you weren't looking for him.

Whenever Cas wasn't looking his direction, he felt as though someone was watching him, observing him in much the same way he was observing the bar. When his eyes floated over the table nearest the door, however, the man appeared to be deeply engrossed in a cell phone, or reading a book. To be honest, it didn't generally strike Castiel as something that would be considered odd, but something about the man seemed off nonetheless.

"Excuse me," he cut in for the first time since they'd arrived, interrupting a heated debate between Dean and Cory as to whether Metallica or Megadeth was the superior metal band (Dean insisting of course that while Mustane was in fact talented, Hetfield was by far the superior frontman in that he stirred an entire genre in the late 80s and that Lars Ulrich couldn't be held against the band for being a shitty drummer). "Do you know the man at that table?"

Cory followed the direction in which Cas vaguely indicated, seeming genuinely surprised when his eyes caught upon the guy.

"Didn't even see him come in," the bartender admitted with a frown, "and I sure as fuck don't remember giving him a Corona."

Even as the other two hunters registered the sudden shift of conversation, the man at the table stood, not even acknowledging that the four men at the bar were staring at him as he slipped out the door.

Dean frowned, finally grasping the urgent significance of why Cas was suddenly on his feet and striding after some random customer.

"H-hey!" The hunter shouted as he slid off the stool, bolting for the door.

Sam gave Cory an apologetic look, dropping another twenty on the table for their last round of drinks. "Sorry," he offered, "duty calls."

"Yeah, sure - no thing," Cory responded. Wasn't any of his business if the feds took interest in some freeloader who thought it was okay to brown-bag his own beer, that was just less he had to worry about.

Castiel picked up into a run as he saw the man turn around the corner of the building past the smoke shop. There wasn't much beyond it, just a mostly empty parking lot, but he had to catch this man if he could. Too much about this person struck him as odd, such as how he had failed to truly notice the man's presence until that moment despite the fact he was now aware that this was not the first time he had seen him.

"Cas! Dammit!" He heard Dean call out from behind him as he rounded the corner, stopping to scan the lot but finding no trace of the man from the bar. It had been mere seconds, there was no way he could have-

An unseen force slammed into the fallen angel, knocking him hard into the side of the building with the sharp crack of old wood protesting against the sudden impact. He pushed himself up after a moment, feeling hands on his arm and back as he attained what he assumed was a sitting position, stunned by the abrupt assault and the sharp ringing in his ears.

"Cas, you okay?" Dean's voice floated to him, fingers brushing through his hair. He hissed as rough fingers prodded something above his right eyebrow, wincing and batting at the offending digits as they touched somewhere tender and stinging. Distantly, he realised he must have hit his head when he'd connected with the wall, contributing to his disorientation, but the current situation was more important - he needed to get on his feet.

"Where did he go, do you see him?" Cas said. Or, at least, that's what he hoped he had said.

He heard Dean reply, but the words weren't coming through clearly, an unfortunate combination of the alcohol he'd consumed and the blow to the head making everything seem sort of surreal. To be frank, he very much disliked the sensation.

Another pair of hands joined Dean's on his other side, pulling him upright and walking him back around toward the front of the bar, and that's when he saw him.

The man from the bar was standing across the lot beside an old, rusted green Volkswagen Thing, hands stuffed in his pockets and smirking at the three men shuffling toward the Impala. Cas registered the amusement on the stranger's face, as well as an odd sort of recognition in the glint of his eyes.

"Dean," Cas managed as the man tipped him a mock salute, but then the world swam out of focus again.

* * *

Sitting in front of a massive stone fireplace in a comfortably overstuffed arm chair, he swirled the vintage brandy in its crystal snifter as he absorbed the information in front of him.

As far as battle tactics went, direct confrontations weren't his style. Well, at least not initially. There was build-up, foreplay to consider. He wasn't blind to the fact that in the business world, sometimes you had to get your hands a little dirty. Didn't mean there weren't entertaining ways of getting there, though. And honestly, this was some very, very entertaining stuff. Barrels of laughs, really.

Amazing creation, the internet; you can find the damnedest things on the World Wide Web. Some of the things he found in the seedier bits of the vast archive of the human collective were dark enough to make a demon cringe, say _'oh, that is just fucked up'_. Oh, and there was Rule Thirty-Four, of course. The things that these apes come up with. Truly mind-boggling. But, he had to digress, he was getting sidetracked.

Scrolling through the wall of text on the screen before him was tiring, but so worth it in the end. True, he _could_ delegate the task to some peon or another, a whole army of them if he'd wanted. What he needed, however - well, it had to hit close to home, and you just can't hire help that good these days. And besides, this was really some inspiring stuff - really got the creative juices flowing, not that he needed much of a nudge even on his worst days. He could be inventive, artistic even, when he chose to be so.

Really, though - he should invest in a bloody Kindle or something. Computers. Bah.

As far as nefarious plans went, this was definitely one of his better ones, he had to say. The discovery of these... rather informative texts, was titillating to say the least. It isn't every day you get such insight to your nemeses' goings-on, hopes, dreams... nightmares. He really had to congratulate himself on such a clever means of getting one's nemeses' attention.

He should really like to thank this Carver Edlund for putting together such a comprehensive study on the Winchesters. Pity the man was dead.

* * *

**A/N**: I imagine Cas speaks Enochian with Inias in their phone conversations so Dean can't butt in :P  
'Ho' is not Enochian (that I'm aware of)- I actually borrowed it from Orson Scott Card's 'Battle-School Slang' from the book _Ender's Game_ - but the rest of it is, pulled from an Enochian dictionary I found on Google. It's nothing fancy or plot important, but roughly translates to '_what's going on in_ _Heaven_' followed by '_talk to you later, __goodbye, brother'_.

Sorry this chapter took so long to get put up, there were a few unforseen complications. Just remember what I said about not burning my house down _;;)


End file.
